Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, cc
wrote
on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 14:59:00 -0700 (PDT):
> On Jun 4, 5:06*pm, The Ghost In The Machine
> wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
>>
>> *wrote
>> on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 15:57:16 -0400
>> :
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > * Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:
>>
>> >> In article ,
>> >> *Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
>> >>> Thus the only way we can even hope to use these stats to determine Linux
>> >>> usage is to simply assert, as a "truth" fabricated out of whole cloth,
>> >>> that Linux users use Facebook at approximtely the same rate as Windows
>> >>> users use Facebook.
>>
>> >>> While such an assertion may seem reasonable on the face of it, it is a
>> >>> wholly unsupported assertion, one not derived from any sort of actual
>> >>> measurement or analysis, it is in fact no more valid than rolling a
>> >>> couple of ten-sided dice and asserting "that many percent" use both Linux
>> >>> and Facebook.
>>
>> >> It's not just Facebook. *It's Google, and the BBC news site, and many
>> >> many others. *When you have just one site with low Linux representation,
>> >> there might be some unapparent reason that it attracts Linux users at a
>> >> rate lower than it attracts Windows or Mac users. *But when this is an
>> >> across the board phenomenon, it is hard to blame that on some hidden
>> >> bias.
>>
>> > Of course, you don't get one consistent number, you get a fairly wide
>> > range. *Only by making an assumption can you pin down the true "linux
>> > percentage" based on a collection of web stats. *One such assumption is
>> > "all OS users visit sites without regard to the operating system they
>> > use."
>>
>> > This, of course, is somewhat false, since many sites discourage visits
>> > by non-Windows systems.
>>
>> Not only that, but there's the usual issues regarding
>> multiboots. *I'm setting up my laptop now, in fact, to boot
>> a number of distros (not all of them Linux-related), mostly
>> because I want to. *(Regrettably, ReactOS won't be one
>> of them; it's not ready to install on extended partitions
>> yet for some reason. *I can install ReactOS on a phantom
>> machine, and it gives me a rather basic desktop. *I don't
>> know about its networking yet.)
>>
>> So, if I were to natively install Gentoo (which I've
>> already done), Fedora, openSuSE, Sabayon, Debian, Ubuntu,
>> Debian/HURD or Gentoo/HURD, FreeDOS, XP (which came with
>> the machine), ReactOS, LinuxFromScratch, and FreeBSD,
>> either natively or in QEMU disk images on this box, how
>> much market share do I influence? ;-)
>>
>
> I'm assuming you do some web browsing from all of them, so why
> wouldn't you show up for all of them? You'd count more in Linux's
> favor, but you're using more than one Linux distro. So you'd influence
> exactly how much market share you'd think you would. As in, count one
> per distro. What's so hard about that situation?

Is this an accurate reflection of the situation, then?
Not everyone browses from a Linux box, and not every Linux
box has a browser (especially if it's doing industrial
control type stuff).

What should we be measuring?

[a] The number of Linux installations?

[b] The number of users doing Linux installations?

[c] The number of boxes owned by a user with at least one
Linux installation? (Additional complications ensue if
one installs Linux on a family desktop or company server.)

[d] The number of minutes using a Linux distro?

[e] The number of minutes downloading stuff from a Linux server?

[f] The number of minutes running tools on a Linux distro
(as opposed to running tools on a remote box somewhere else
[this could also be in a virtual machine hosted by QEMU,
VmWare, or UML] and displaying the results on an X server
running on a Linux box)?

[g] The number of minutes actually using Linux (in other
words, coding things using int $0x80), as opposed to
using a POSIX-compliant layer such as open(), fopen(),
or std::ifstream, which could almost as easily be
ported to or from FreeBSD?

[h] The number of Linux distros actually downloaded?

[j] The number of Linux distros actually *bought*?

[k] The number of Linux distros bought by an end user?

[m] The number of Linux distros preinstalled on boxes
which are actually bought by an end user?

[n] The number of Linux distros preinstalled on boxes
which are actually bought by an end user, that aren't
wiped by a new installation of some other OS?

[p] The number of visits to a certain, supposedly unbiased,
website, using a browser (or something that looks like
such a browser; the User-Agent: line is very easy to futz)
running on a Linux box?

I could go on but it's very clear that there's a lot of
variables. One could equally easily substitute Windows
for Linux in the above; about all that changes is the
ability to more accurately measure [j]. Maybe.

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Kelsey Bjarnason
wrote
on Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:00:03 GMT:
> On Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:52:04 -0700, Tim Smith wrote:
>
>> In article <59uih5-q9o.ln1@spankywork.localhost.net>,
>> Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
>>>
>>> Let me explain this to you in terms even you might be able to
>>> understand:
>>>
>>> The goal is to determine the number of Linux users from web stats.
>>
>> No, the goal is to determine the percentage of Linux users among the
>> general computer using population, not the absolute number.
>
> It's the same ****ing number, you moron.
>
> If Linux is used by 15% of a user population of 100 million people,
> it is used by 15 million users.
>
> So what is the total Linux user population? 15 million.
>
> Try to plug your brain in before posting.

See my prior post on this thread for some of the
complications one might run into regarding "using Linux".
AFAICT, no one truly uses Linux (that would require machine
code that [usually] involves int $0x80); everyone writes
to the POSIX layer, or a layer above that layer.

Ideally it wouldn't make all that much difference.
Linux kernel? HURD? FreeBSD? Solaris? WinNTXP?
Go ahead, pick one. The only difference might be in
the libc library implementation and the executable
file formats, if that.

Ideally.
>
> BTW, I snipped your "math" which *still* rests on the unfounded
> assumption that a given site will be as popular with Linux users as with
> Windows users. See if you can check the stats on the Windows update site
> and figure out why your assumption is almost as stupid as you are.
>

I'm not sure which is worse, assuming that a Windows update
site will publish its logs (mmmmm, hackers!) or that the
logs would reflect anything near reality especially when
it comes to non-Windows environments/operating systems.

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

In article ,
Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
> >> The goal is to determine the number of Linux users from web stats.
> >
> > No, the goal is to determine the percentage of Linux users among the
> > general computer using population, not the absolute number.
>
> It's the same ****ing number, you moron.

Really? One is a number in [0, 100], and one is a number that is
considerably greater than 100. Kind of hard for them to be the same.
> If Linux is used by 15% of a user population of 100 million people, it is
> used by 15 million users.
>
> So what is the total Linux user population? 15 million.
>
> Try to plug your brain in before posting.

You are very confused. Given any two of the following:

(1) Total Linux user population
(2) Total computer using population
(3) Percentage of Linux users in total computer using population

then the third can be calculated, using arithmetic that I would hope
that even you, deficient though your mathematics education has evidently
been, would be able to handle. But they are very different numbers.

Item (3) can be determined without having to know (1) or (2). For
example, given a random sample of N people from the total computer using
population, if L of those are Linux users, then we could confidently say
that the fraction of Linux users in the general population is L/N with a
margin of error of ~1/sqrt(N) with a confidence level of 95%.
> BTW, I snipped your "math" which *still* rests on the unfounded
> assumption that a given site will be as popular with Linux users as with
> Windows users. See if you can check the stats on the Windows update site
> and figure out why your assumption is almost as stupid as you are.

Actually, if you look carefully (or get someone competent to do so and
try to explain it to you), I covered that. Whether or not a site like
Facebook provides the same kind of estimate that a random sample would
depends on whether or not Lf/L < Wf/W, Lf/L = Wf/W, or Lf/L > Wf/W.

Your position seems to be, on those occasions when you are actually
coherent enough to be able to be said to have a position, that since we
don't know which of the three relations applies to Lf/L and Wf/W, we
must treat them as equally likely (I bet you had trouble with the Monty
Hall problem...).

For the Windows update site, we'd *expect* Lf/L to be much lower than
Wf/W, because the site is only of use to Windows users. That's not so
for Facebook, or Google, or the BBC, or other sites geared toward the
general population.

Another check we can do is look at Mac stats. We have a source of Mac
data that is not web-based: Apple sales numbers, which they report
quarterly as a public company. If a web site yields a Mac fraction that
is reasonably accurate, then we can infer that it does not have Windows
bias, and thus, absent some specific reason to believe it would have an
anti-Linux bias, get some useful information from its Linux fraction.

--
--Tim Smith

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

In article ,
Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
> The most glaringly obvious refutation of this is to point out that if the
> interests of Linux users matched those of Windows users, they wouldn't
> *BE* Linux users.

Hence, you want to look at web sites that cater to those areas where the
interests of Linux users and Windows users do match.

--
--Tim Smith

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Tim Smith
wrote
on Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:26:26 -0700:
> In article ,
> Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
>> The most glaringly obvious refutation of this is to point out that if the
>> interests of Linux users matched those of Windows users, they wouldn't
>> *BE* Linux users.
>
> Hence, you want to look at web sites that cater to those areas where the
> interests of Linux users and Windows users do match.
>

Or where the OS is generally irrelevant. For example,
one might look at the logs of nascar.com.

And even then, all that does is measure the subset of
Web-using Windows users versus the subset of Web-using
Linux users. That's not all users, though it's a
very large fraction thereof nowadays.

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

On 2008-06-04, Tim Smith wrote:
>
> Do you have any reason to believe that Facebook use is correlated with
> OS use, and so Lf/L != Wf/W?
>

Do you have ANY evidence to support correlation or no correlation?

This is a completely useless discussion.

You cannot work out from web surfing stats the percentage of linux
users. All you can get is the stats about linux WEB SURFERS on specific
sites.

The internet is far far far more than just http.

--
Regards,

Gregory.
Gentoo Linux - Penguin Power

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

On Jun 4, 6:49*pm, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, cc
>
> *wrote
> on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 14:59:00 -0700 (PDT)
> :
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jun 4, 5:06*pm, The Ghost In The Machine
> > wrote:
> >> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
> >>
> >> *wrote
> >> on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 15:57:16 -0400
> >> :
>
> >> > * Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:
>
> >> >> In article ,
> >> >> *Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
> >> >>> Thus the only way we can even hope to use these stats to determine Linux
> >> >>> usage is to simply assert, as a "truth" fabricated out of whole cloth,
> >> >>> that Linux users use Facebook at approximtely the same rate as Windows
> >> >>> users use Facebook.
>
> >> >>> While such an assertion may seem reasonable on the face of it, it is a
> >> >>> wholly unsupported assertion, one not derived from any sort of actual
> >> >>> measurement or analysis, it is in fact no more valid than rolling a
> >> >>> couple of ten-sided dice and asserting "that many percent" use bothLinux
> >> >>> and Facebook.
>
> >> >> It's not just Facebook. *It's Google, and the BBC news site, and many
> >> >> many others. *When you have just one site with low Linux representation,
> >> >> there might be some unapparent reason that it attracts Linux users at a
> >> >> rate lower than it attracts Windows or Mac users. *But when this is an
> >> >> across the board phenomenon, it is hard to blame that on some hidden
> >> >> bias.
>
> >> > Of course, you don't get one consistent number, you get a fairly wide
> >> > range. *Only by making an assumption can you pin down the true "linux
> >> > percentage" based on a collection of web stats. *One such assumption is
> >> > "all OS users visit sites without regard to the operating system they
> >> > use."
>
> >> > This, of course, is somewhat false, since many sites discourage visits
> >> > by non-Windows systems.
>
> >> Not only that, but there's the usual issues regarding
> >> multiboots. *I'm setting up my laptop now, in fact, to boot
> >> a number of distros (not all of them Linux-related), mostly
> >> because I want to. *(Regrettably, ReactOS won't be one
> >> of them; it's not ready to install on extended partitions
> >> yet for some reason. *I can install ReactOS on a phantom
> >> machine, and it gives me a rather basic desktop. *I don't
> >> know about its networking yet.)
>
> >> So, if I were to natively install Gentoo (which I've
> >> already done), Fedora, openSuSE, Sabayon, Debian, Ubuntu,
> >> Debian/HURD or Gentoo/HURD, FreeDOS, XP (which came with
> >> the machine), ReactOS, LinuxFromScratch, and FreeBSD,
> >> either natively or in QEMU disk images on this box, how
> >> much market share do I influence? ;-)
>
> > I'm assuming you do some web browsing from all of them, so why
> > wouldn't you show up for all of them? You'd count more in Linux's
> > favor, but you're using more than one Linux distro. So you'd influence
> > exactly how much market share you'd think you would. As in, count one
> > per distro. What's so hard about that situation?
>
> Is this an accurate reflection of the situation, then?
> Not everyone browses from a Linux box, and not every Linux
> box has a browser (especially if it's doing industrial
> control type stuff).
>

We're talking desktops.

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

On Jun 4, 6:45*pm, Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
> [snips]
>
> On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:59:22 -0400, Linonut wrote:
> > Personally, since Linux is still somewhat of a techie system, I would
> > suspect that most Facebook users are Windowsers.
>
> Bingo. *This is the point the boneheads persist in overlooking.
>
> One analysis works as follows:
>
> There are an estimated 600 million Windows machines.
> There are some 100 million Facebook users.
> 90% of those facebook users run Windows.
>
> Thus, some 15% of Windows users, total, use Facebook.
>
> Using this value in conjunction with the (hypothetical) fact that 5% of
> Facebook users run Linux, we crank the numbers:
>
> 5% of facebook users = 5 million people using both Facebook and Linux.
> 15% of total users also use Facebook, therefore there are some 33 million
> Linux users.
>
> Which all makes perfect sense until you stop and realize it is based
> entirely on one completely unfounded assumption: that Linux users use the
> same sites, share the same interests, in about the same proportion as
> Windows users do.
>
> The most glaringly obvious refutation of this is to point out that if the
> interests of Linux users matched those of Windows users, they wouldn't
> *BE* Linux users.
>
> Simply choosing to use Linux already means you have a divergent interest
> set. *How divergent cannot be determined short of polling the users.
>
> So how does one determine Linux usage from such information? *You can't.*
> You can determine, to some accuracy, how many Linux users _use that
> site_. *You haven't a snowball's chance in Hell of using this to
> determine general Linux usage, as you have no way to figure what
> percentage of Linux users this number represents.
>
> For some reason, this doesn't sink in with them. *Nor does the next
> obvious point: that the only way to determine that percentage is to start
> by figuring out how many people are using Linux, at which point you no
> longer need the web stats to tell you this.

Please look up the definition of a sample. Please, I'm begging you.
They teach this **** in grade school.

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

Moshe Goldfarb wrote:
> Tim Smith wrote:
>> High Plains Thumper wrote:
>>> William Poaster wrote:
>>>> Linonut wrote:
>>>>> Tim Smith fired off:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Really? So, if DFS posts a bunch of links showing
>>>>>> Linux having problems with some area that, say, Roy,
>>>>>> has declared Linux great in, your past of
>>>>>> DFS in some other thread will somehow magically
>>>>>> alert all current readers that DFS is being ignored
>>>>>> for that reason, rather than being ignored because
>>>>>> no one has a good answer?
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, I feel that a good razzberry often speaks
>>>>> volumes.
>>>>
>>>> I feel the MActroll is talking bollocks, as usual.
>>>>
>>>>>> It may be hard to believe, but there are actually
>>>>>> new people coming to this group. The new names
>>>>>> aren't *all* just new HPT and Culley sock puppets.
>>>>>
>>>>> Nice one Tim. I'm sure you have /proof/ of this
>>>>> rampant sock puppetry, hmm?
>>>>
>>>> Funny how the Mactroll Smith cites this alleged sock
>>>> puppetry without proof, yet not a word about Moshe
>>>> "Flatfish" Goldfarbe.
>>>
>>> “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it,
>>> people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be
>>> maintained only for such time as the State can shield the
>>> people from the political, economic and/or military
>>> consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important
>>> for the State to use all of its powers to repress
>>> dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and
>>> thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the
>>> State.” Joseph Goebbels
>>>
>>> It is interesting to note that the Wintrolls in this
>>> newsgroup have been carrying the same party line, same
>>> lie.
>>>
>>>>> Even "Moshe" doesn't seem to engage in that, lately,
>>>>> as far as I can tell. Right now, most of the posters
>>>>> here are singletons, I feel.
>>>
>>> Google Groups and Usenet ISP's including the free ones
>>> have been putting in additional controls to help control
>>> comment spamming and indescriminant nym-shifting.
>>
>> [blah blah blah]
>>
>> You know, HPT, your "I don't nym shift" claims would work a
>> lot better if you hadn't posted that report about your nym
>> shifting experiments.

I had stopped posting to COLA because of the troll infestation.
It was smiths' reference to "daeron" that caught my eye. For
someone who has me in his kill file he do seemed obsessed with me.

'smith' only objects to pro Linux articles posted on COLA. He
professes to have me kill filed yet he still finds the posting of
such articles objectionable. Surely he can't even *see* these off
topic articles ?

On the other hand he ignores the tons of off topic posts by the
trolls. Indeed he regularly jumps in the give them a hand with
some distraction fud.
> He is sometimes amusing--like when he decided that Erik
> Funkenbusch and I were actually the same person. Considering
> that I've got 19 years of Google

His posting style is so similar that I did once accuse him of
being the same person. Why would a professed Linux advocate sound
so much like a professional windows troll ?

I once asked you when you have ever critised Erik. You never did
reply. SO I ask you here again produce the citations or retract
that statement.

Before fuddie, as he is affectionatly known, discovered COLA he
hung out on the OS/2 group helping people understand its demise
was because of OS inferiority and not because of sabotage by the
Microsoft corporation.

He really wanted OS/2 to be better. He said the same about Linux.
He really wants it to be better. This is the kind of people
'smith' & Co works to defend.

This is him yet again running interference for Erik Funkenbusch
one of the most notorious Microsoft trolls on UseNet.

"I've taken that anti-Erik side as much as most other regulars
here, except I stick to technical issues, so actually have a
chance of winning the argument, instead of just looking like a
pro-Linux troll."

Tim Smith Mar 04 2003
Message-ID:

That was in march of last year. I ask you now again. Show us
where you have ever criticized Erik Funkenbusch.

ps: MAc advocates: notice how he equate being pro Linux on COLA
with being a troll. Watch out any of you saying good things about
Apple you might end up being painted a mac troll by 'smith'.

> Not to mention that he is not very good at it and often screws
> up and gets caught.

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, cc
wrote
on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 20:02:18 -0700 (PDT) <7d70b9af-7088-407a-bdda-367c9ea524d5@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>:
> On Jun 4, 6:49*pm, The Ghost In The Machine
> wrote:
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, cc
>>
>> *wrote
>> on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 14:59:00 -0700 (PDT)
>> :
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Jun 4, 5:06*pm, The Ghost In The Machine
>> > wrote:
>> >> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
>> >>
>> >> *wrote
>> >> on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 15:57:16 -0400
>> >> :
>>
>> >> > * Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:
>>
>> >> >> In article ,
>> >> >> *Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
>> >> >>> Thus the only way we can even hope to use these stats to determine Linux
>> >> >>> usage is to simply assert, as a "truth" fabricated out of whole cloth,
>> >> >>> that Linux users use Facebook at approximtely the same rate as Windows
>> >> >>> users use Facebook.
>>
>> >> >>> While such an assertion may seem reasonable on the face of it, it is a
>> >> >>> wholly unsupported assertion, one not derived from any sort of actual
>> >> >>> measurement or analysis, it is in fact no more valid than rolling a
>> >> >>> couple of ten-sided dice and asserting "that many percent" use both Linux
>> >> >>> and Facebook.
>>
>> >> >> It's not just Facebook. *It's Google, and the BBC news site, and many
>> >> >> many others. *When you have just one site with low Linux representation,
>> >> >> there might be some unapparent reason that it attracts Linux users at a
>> >> >> rate lower than it attracts Windows or Mac users. *But when this is an
>> >> >> across the board phenomenon, it is hard to blame that on some hidden
>> >> >> bias.
>>
>> >> > Of course, you don't get one consistent number, you get a fairly wide
>> >> > range. *Only by making an assumption can you pin down the true "linux
>> >> > percentage" based on a collection of web stats. *One such assumption is
>> >> > "all OS users visit sites without regard to the operating system they
>> >> > use."
>>
>> >> > This, of course, is somewhat false, since many sites discourage visits
>> >> > by non-Windows systems.
>>
>> >> Not only that, but there's the usual issues regarding
>> >> multiboots. *I'm setting up my laptop now, in fact, to boot
>> >> a number of distros (not all of them Linux-related), mostly
>> >> because I want to. *(Regrettably, ReactOS won't be one
>> >> of them; it's not ready to install on extended partitions
>> >> yet for some reason. *I can install ReactOS on a phantom
>> >> machine, and it gives me a rather basic desktop. *I don't
>> >> know about its networking yet.)
>>
>> >> So, if I were to natively install Gentoo (which I've
>> >> already done), Fedora, openSuSE, Sabayon, Debian, Ubuntu,
>> >> Debian/HURD or Gentoo/HURD, FreeDOS, XP (which came with
>> >> the machine), ReactOS, LinuxFromScratch, and FreeBSD,
>> >> either natively or in QEMU disk images on this box, how
>> >> much market share do I influence? ;-)
>>
>> > I'm assuming you do some web browsing from all of them, so why
>> > wouldn't you show up for all of them? You'd count more in Linux's
>> > favor, but you're using more than one Linux distro. So you'd influence
>> > exactly how much market share you'd think you would. As in, count one
>> > per distro. What's so hard about that situation?
>>
>> Is this an accurate reflection of the situation, then?
>> Not everyone browses from a Linux box, and not every Linux
>> box has a browser (especially if it's doing industrial
>> control type stuff).
>>
>
> We're talking desktops.

OK...and?

Not every desktop is as simple as an Inspiron 530 running
Windows Vista Home Basic, you know. ;-)

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

What do you think some random Daeron post has to do with your admitted
nym shifting?

--
--Tim Smith

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

In article ,
Gregory Shearman wrote:
> You cannot work out from web surfing stats the percentage of linux
> users. All you can get is the stats about linux WEB SURFERS on specific
> sites.
>
> The internet is far far far more than just http.

Ah, another proponent of the "Linux users are weird people that don't do
things that normal people do" theory. They aren't interested in social
networking, so are underrepresented on Facebook. They don't need to
search the internet, so are underrepresent on Google. And so on.

--
--Tim Smith

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

* Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:
> In article ,
> Gregory Shearman wrote:
>> You cannot work out from web surfing stats the percentage of linux
>> users. All you can get is the stats about linux WEB SURFERS on specific
>> sites.
>>
>> The internet is far far far more than just http.
>
> Ah, another proponent of the "Linux users are weird people that don't do
> things that normal people do" theory. They aren't interested in social
> networking, so are underrepresented on Facebook. They don't need to
> search the internet, so are underrepresent on Google. And so on.

This might be true, Tim. Why? Because Linux preloads are still
relatively rare, and so most Linux users roll their own systems.
Although it is easy to do so these days, it takes a certain mindset to
even consider doing that.

Although people vary, I would tend to think many are like me: don't
care about NASCAR, have little interest in social networking, little
interest even in CNN.com. Hell, I'm a big soccer fan, and I almost
never visit soccer sites or soccer discussion boards, even for our home
team (Charleston Battery).

As for Google, all you can get now is sites that post their
google-analytics results. Such as Robert Love's site, which shows a
high percentage of Linux users .

--
The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have
absolutely no taste, and what that means is -- I don't mean that in a small
way I mean that in a big way -- in the sense that they they don't think of
original ideas and they don't bring much culture into their product.
-- Steve Jobs as quoted in the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds (1996)

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

On Jun 4, 11:34*pm, The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, cc
>
> *wrote
> on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 20:02:18 -0700 (PDT)
> <7d70b9af-7088-407a-bdda-367c9ea52...@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jun 4, 6:49*pm, The Ghost In The Machine
> > wrote:
> >> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, cc
> >>
> >> *wrote
> >> on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 14:59:00 -0700 (PDT)
> >> :
>
> >> > On Jun 4, 5:06*pm, The Ghost In The Machine
> >> > wrote:
> >> >> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Linonut
> >> >>
> >> >> *wrote
> >> >> on Wed, 4 Jun 2008 15:57:16 -0400
> >> >> :
>
> >> >> > * Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:
>
> >> >> >> In article ,
> >> >> >> *Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
> >> >> >>> Thus the only way we can even hope to use these stats to determine Linux
> >> >> >>> usage is to simply assert, as a "truth" fabricated out of whole cloth,
> >> >> >>> that Linux users use Facebook at approximtely the same rate as Windows
> >> >> >>> users use Facebook.
>
> >> >> >>> While such an assertion may seem reasonable on the face of it, it is a
> >> >> >>> wholly unsupported assertion, one not derived from any sort of actual
> >> >> >>> measurement or analysis, it is in fact no more valid than rolling a
> >> >> >>> couple of ten-sided dice and asserting "that many percent" use both Linux
> >> >> >>> and Facebook.
>
> >> >> >> It's not just Facebook. *It's Google, and the BBC news site, and many
> >> >> >> many others. *When you have just one site with low Linux representation,
> >> >> >> there might be some unapparent reason that it attracts Linux users at a
> >> >> >> rate lower than it attracts Windows or Mac users. *But when this is an
> >> >> >> across the board phenomenon, it is hard to blame that on some hidden
> >> >> >> bias.
>
> >> >> > Of course, you don't get one consistent number, you get a fairly wide
> >> >> > range. *Only by making an assumption can you pin down the true "linux
> >> >> > percentage" based on a collection of web stats. *One such assumption is
> >> >> > "all OS users visit sites without regard to the operating system they
> >> >> > use."
>
> >> >> > This, of course, is somewhat false, since many sites discourage visits
> >> >> > by non-Windows systems.
>
> >> >> Not only that, but there's the usual issues regarding
> >> >> multiboots. *I'm setting up my laptop now, in fact, to boot
> >> >> a number of distros (not all of them Linux-related), mostly
> >> >> because I want to. *(Regrettably, ReactOS won't be one
> >> >> of them; it's not ready to install on extended partitions
> >> >> yet for some reason. *I can install ReactOS on a phantom
> >> >> machine, and it gives me a rather basic desktop. *I don't
> >> >> know about its networking yet.)
>
> >> >> So, if I were to natively install Gentoo (which I've
> >> >> already done), Fedora, openSuSE, Sabayon, Debian, Ubuntu,
> >> >> Debian/HURD or Gentoo/HURD, FreeDOS, XP (which came with
> >> >> the machine), ReactOS, LinuxFromScratch, and FreeBSD,
> >> >> either natively or in QEMU disk images on this box, how
> >> >> much market share do I influence? ;-)
>
> >> > I'm assuming you do some web browsing from all of them, so why
> >> > wouldn't you show up for all of them? You'd count more in Linux's
> >> > favor, but you're using more than one Linux distro. So you'd influence
> >> > exactly how much market share you'd think you would. As in, count one
> >> > per distro. What's so hard about that situation?
>
> >> Is this an accurate reflection of the situation, then?
> >> Not everyone browses from a Linux box, and not every Linux
> >> box has a browser (especially if it's doing industrial
> >> control type stuff).
>
> > We're talking desktops.
>
> OK...and?
>
> Not every desktop is as simple as an Inspiron 530 running
> Windows Vista Home Basic, you know. ;-)
>

I wouldn't call it a desktop if it's doing industrial control, but
that's just me. So why wouldn't this be an accurate reflection? There
will be some Linux users that won't browse. There will be some Windows
users that won't browse. Are you saying their choice of OS determines
whether or not they browse the internet?

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

On Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:09:31 -0700, Tim Smith wrote:
> In article ,
> Gregory Shearman wrote:
>> You cannot work out from web surfing stats the percentage of linux
>> users. All you can get is the stats about linux WEB SURFERS on specific
>> sites.
>>
>> The internet is far far far more than just http.
>
> Ah, another proponent of the "Linux users are weird people that don't do
> things that normal people do" theory. They aren't interested in social
> networking, so are underrepresented on Facebook. They don't need to
> search the internet, so are underrepresent on Google. And so on.

That's one reason why in COLA, I call it LIEnix....
The Linux advocates have more excuses to explain away things than Carter
has liver pills.
--
Moshe Goldfarb
Collector of soaps from around the globe.
Please visit The Hall of Linux Idiots:http://linuxidiots.blogspot.com/

Re: How many "advocates" have me killfiled?

On Thu, 5 Jun 2008 06:47:57 -0400, Linonut wrote:
> * Tim Smith peremptorily fired off this memo:
>
>> In article ,
>> Gregory Shearman wrote:
>>> You cannot work out from web surfing stats the percentage of linux
>>> users. All you can get is the stats about linux WEB SURFERS on specific
>>> sites.
>>>
>>> The internet is far far far more than just http.
>>
>> Ah, another proponent of the "Linux users are weird people that don't do
>> things that normal people do" theory. They aren't interested in social
>> networking, so are underrepresented on Facebook. They don't need to
>> search the internet, so are underrepresent on Google. And so on.
>
> This might be true, Tim. Why? Because Linux preloads are still
> relatively rare, and so most Linux users roll their own systems.
> Although it is easy to do so these days, it takes a certain mindset to
> even consider doing that.
>
> Although people vary, I would tend to think many are like me: don't
> care about NASCAR, have little interest in social networking, little
> interest even in CNN.com. Hell, I'm a big soccer fan, and I almost
> never visit soccer sites or soccer discussion boards, even for our home
> team (Charleston Battery).
>
> As for Google, all you can get now is sites that post their
> google-analytics results. Such as Robert Love's site, which shows a
> high percentage of Linux users .

Sites like the BBC and the W3schools site as well as some others are pretty
generic sites that would attract a fairly wide range of people.
They all for the most part seem to pretty much agree that Linux hovers
below 1 percent.